


In Everything But Name

by Liana Mir (scribblemyname)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bathing/Washing, First Time, Kings & Queens, M/M, Magic, mild pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2020-10-11 06:31:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20541656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/Liana%20Mir
Summary: Essar was named for the first queen, born of her lineage, but he had no desire to rule. Garrien would make a perfectly fine king. He was intelligent, diplomatic, of firm mind and sound strategy, and could charm anyone into making an agreement—except the land. Even by magic, it only accepted referrals.





	In Everything But Name

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).

"I am going to kill you," Essar growled.

"Now is that anyway to talk to your prince," demanded the other without missing a beat, despite being nearly headfirst in a puddle of itchy, clingy magic that wasn't doing a single thing to bind him to anything but his own unfortunate position. 

But there was no laughter at his ridiculousness, and the long silence in the wake of his words convinced the prince that his guard was not taking this lightly. Garrien sighed. "Help me up then."

Essar helped him up, tugging the prince up into his arms as though he weighed no more than a young woman or a small child, neither of which ideas did anything wonderful for the prince's ego, but he'd long since learned that Essar cared nothing at all for Garrien's ego, even after his safety was guaranteed, so Garrien might as well not bother complaining.

"You might as well be a mother hen with one chick," the prince complained easily anyway. "Now that you've extricated me from the magic I was stuck in, I'm sure I can stand on my own feet. Those still work, I think."

Firm muscle tightened around him, a huff of hot breath at his temple, ruffling his hair and making it tickle, the closest to a longsuffering sigh his longsuffering guard would probably ever allow. "When we clear the domain, Highness," the guard answered, his deference apparently returning with such clear proof that the prince was uninjured.

The prince sighed—loudly. "Very well." It's not like complaining further would get him anything he wanted, not even another break in that icy reserve. Anything was worth _that_, rare and treasured glimpses below the surface of Essar's mighty walls of stoicism. "You're like a stone," Garrien said aloud. "One that will never break or falter but could be a little softer on the inside, if you ask me."

"Good thing no one did," Essar answered dryly. He deposited the prince on a soft enough chair, the comfortable one in the corner of the suite, which had worn down just so to fit its occupant's preferred way of sitting.

"I suppose you'll tell Mother." The prince suppressed a sigh.

A long pause. "Is that your command, Highness?"

The prince perked up. "No, it is not. Don't tell her." He grinned openly. Who else could he be open with except his faithful guard?

Then he deflated again as swirls of magic brushed over his body in the wake of the established domain's dissipation. Another attempt, another failure. Just like his mother continued to fail.

Garrien brooded for a moment, then shook himself physically. "Come. You must help me get dressed. I've the ambassador of Mayang to wrangle a treaty out of."

"Highness." Essar sounded exasperated, a faint shift in his usual flat tone.

"Oh, come now. My mother may have wrested control of this land from a horrible tyrant, conquered his armies, and been welcomed with open arms by the people, but the _land_ itself does not recognize her, despite her following every written ritual or tradition or ceremony we could find anywhere for convincing it to." Garrien waved toward his own magic ceremony gone awry. "We need this trade treaty because the land won't produce harvests. We're lucky house gardens still do, I suppose."

Essar did not answer. A guard was not a valet and yet Essar sent for no one else as he tightened buckles and folded in sleeves and set a circlet on the crown prince's head.

The prince felt grim. He wondered if he looked as grim as he felt. "I must _make_ the land acknowledge me." He twisted his mouth to one side in what might have been a smile. "Or what kind of a king would I be?"

* * *

The crown prince was blind, but he seemed to see far more than even his mother, Essar thought to himself with an inward sigh. Outwardly, he was without expression as he followed the prince closely through the palace halls, occasionally murmuring a direction to account for that lack of sight.

It should have been humiliating, walking one step behind his father's conquerors at all times, but there wasn't much love lost between the old king and the numerous children he'd left on any women that took his fancy. He may have paid for their survival after he tired of their mothers, but they weren't princes, not really.

That didn't change that the land itself had rather firm ideas of who was supposed to rule it, or at least how they were supposed to get the blessing to. It still loved their first queen, who bound the land in the first place—Essara. Her children may have included many unworthy of their crowns, but the land must have thought the good ones outweighed the bad and wouldn't bother itself with the new queen, whose blood did not contain Essara's.

Essar was named for the first queen, born of her lineage, but he had no desire to rule. Garrien would make a perfectly fine king. He was intelligent, diplomatic, of firm mind and sound strategy, and could charm anyone into making an agreement—except the land. Even by magic, it only accepted referrals.

* * *

It was late by the time Garrien was done grilling and being grilled, but he came away with a decent trade agreement with only minor points remaining to be hammered out to mutual satisfaction, then signed by his mother, the queen.

"Another profitable day, Highness."

Garrien waved off the praise, if praise it was. It was hard to read Essar's tones and he could be dryly sarcastic when one least expected it. "A bath."

A pause. "I'm not your valet."

"Then send for one and let someone else draw it," Garrien answered with some exasperation. "Except you won't because you're paranoid someone's going to poison me with scented oils or one of those bubbling concoctions, aren't you?"

The prince dropped into his favorite chair and listened for the sound of a door opening and a call for a servant. Naturally, none came. There was only the sound of water beginning to fill the tub.

"I suppose you'll help me undress as well," Garrien commented, a trifle hoping to be taken up on the offer.

Instead, he got one of those cracks in Essar's formidable reserve, a scoff of amusement. "I will be glad to take your clothes for cleaning, Highness."

"Yes, yes." He waved Essar off with a hint of disappointment and unfastened his own buckles and bobbins and what have you with the ease of long experience. It's not like he couldn't have a valet, but Mother was as paranoid as Essar and just as happy that the call for one remained mere banter between guard and prince. "You're quite a handful, you know. The least you could do is help me bathe."

A long silence, the faint rustle of cloth and clink of his garments being taken away.

Usually Garrien waited the moment between that and Essar's return to step into the bath, but today, he didn't bother, just slid right into the hot, sudsy, scented water with a deep groan of satisfaction.

"Careful, Highness. I hear princes spoil."

"I'm sure I'll keep myself as fresh as possible until this agreement is settled," Garrien replied dryly. He'd never met anything as stubborn and recalcitrant to even his charms and magic and wealth of good will as this conquered land that hadn't even bothered producing much for the former king of the last dynasty. Garrien could usually always work someone around his finger eventually.

Technically, Essar was taking a while too. A stickler for propriety, he'd yet to take Garrien up on any of his subtle hints that he meant more to Garrien than just a bodyguard. But then, Garrien always left room to interpret otherwise. It's not like he wanted to force himself on the man.

In that moment, he suddenly sat up very straight, startled abruptly by just where the wash cloth went first. Half of him wanted to protest, how sudden, were my private places truly so dirty from the magic I did earlier. The other half wanted to remain quiet and see if Essar would do anything not plausibly deniable. He was already moving upward to safer areas and Garrien would rather he not.

Subtlety. It was the prince's skill more than his mother's.

"You move so quickly," Garrien whined. "Baths are supposed to be luxurious."

Essar's hand stilled briefly. A wry tone, "Spoiled."

"Not at all. Haven't you noticed how long purifying baths go on?" Garrien countered. "Seven times and all that, by word of the priests."

Another one of those amused scoffing sounds, but the cloth dipped back under the water, then Essar stroked smoothly over Garrien's very interested cock—once, twice... Over to his thighs.

Three times was considered the minimum for purifying influence. Garrien was a trifle disappointed.

But Essar did slow down.

He ran slowly over each inch of Garrien's inner thigh, not sparing above, below, outside, then repeated his strokes again, and again. His breath was soft and close enough that Garrien could hear each slow exhale and how they timed with the rhythm of his upstroke, his downstroke. Slow and methodical, he worked his way down one leg and up the other, then curved back between them where Garrien was hot and hard and there was no way at all that it was subtle or not obvious.

For once, he said nothing. Essar may have been the exact kind of person that didn't spook at trouble or surprise, digging or pushing, but this was a first, and Garrien didn't want him to stop.

Essar brought the cloth slowly up Garrien's belly, tracing the frame of his pelvis—slowly, three times. His mouth came close enough for warm air to ruffle the hair above Garrien's ear. Suddenly, there was the sensation that if he moved at all, Essar's mouth would actually be on his skin.

"Do you want me to call a valet, Highness?" Essar breathed, hiding all emotion or meaning beneath that non-tone he preferred to use.

It broke Garrien's almost nonexistent reserve. "Gods, no, man! I'll have your head if you do."

And _that_ was definitely a soft laugh out of Essar and a whine out of Garrien when that rough cloth was dragged slowly, chafing across his chest, up to his neck, followed by a mouth and finally, _finally_, they were touching. Was that a kiss or a tasting? Either seemed uncomfortably hot to Garrien's hazy thoughts. He reached up, fumbling to find Essar's head, uncertain of the angle.

"Ow. Highness," Essar admonished, then took his hand and placed it so Garrien could run fingers through hair silkier than expected and pull Essar down to kiss him properly.

Finally, Essar abandoned the cloth and any pretense of washing him and placed those strong, callused hands on Garrien's body, and it was the best thing Essar had ever done, Garrien decided.

"You should be more naked," he muttered aloud, nibbling teeth against Essar's neck.

"Next time," Essar answered dryly.

Next time. It distracted Garrien for a moment, imagining the promise of such a statement, then he jerked back at the sudden intensity of pleasure, for Essar had found Garrien's cock again and taken him in hand, stroking with a speed and surety that had Garrien panting aloud and whimpering as he cried for more.

He hadn't even thought what more would feel like, but Essar tugged back on Garrien's hair and pressed mouth against his, then slid his hand under Garrien's hip, pulling Garrien upward into his grip and there— He was dizzy and hot, head spinning with waves of pleasure crashing over and through him, and he gasped, "Essar," in a hoarse voice barely his own.

Essar stroked him idly, slowly through the aftershocks of orgasm wracking his body, making Garrien wince. But he didn't complain. There was something comfortable about the intimacy. Finally, Essar let him go and picked up the cloth again, with a ripple in the water familiar to Garrien's ears.

Garrien felt tired and sated, but there was the minor matter of, "Are you—?"

"Next time," Essar murmured back, a wealth of promise still lingering in those words. He slowly worked his hands into Garrien's hair, lather tangible at his temple, gently massaging Garrien's scalp.

Bathing him again, as if he hadn't done it once.

He washed Garrien's neck, his collarbones, dropped a kiss on his shoulder before the fourth wash.

Seven times.

"I have the best ideas," Garrien finally commented.

"Who says it was your idea, Highness?" Essar asked dryly. He gently toweled Garrien off without further protest.

And that was an interesting question indeed.

* * *

Essar was not often separated from his prince, but there was the changing of the guard for a reason. No man could stay awake forever and his appointed eight hours to sleep and refresh himself away from the prince were time neither begrudged.

On his return, he found Garrien standing at the window as though he were admiring the view, though naturally he wasn't, while listening to a court scribe read through one of the massive tomes chronicling the previous king's reign.

"I hear that lightfooted tread of my guard, scribe," Garrien commented lightly. "Off with you."

The scribe bowed and vanished, without commenting that Essar's tread was anything but light, in deliberate deference to Garrien's need to hear it.

But Garrien had sent the scribe scurrying off for a reason. He turned, hands clasped thoughtfully. "Who is your father, Essar?"

"I have none, Highness." He'd been asked the question before. In truth, he'd never viewed the man who sired him as a father, for the man had not wished to be one.

"And your mother," he prodded further.

Essar considered the point. "So the land's accepted you then."

"Was that the reason for your change of behavior?" the prince asked quietly, coldly.

"I have no father, Highness," Essar repeated, "only the very dilute blood of a woman the land once loved."

A very long silence followed.

"And my own love for my prince."

Garrien wasn't hard to read, generally, but right now, he was weighing Essar in the balance, likely deciding whether he'd been used, for his own good or not, or whether Essar had actually meant those words about a next time.

"How long have you been wanting to do that?" he finally asked.

Essar wanted to laugh. "Recommend you to the land or see what you looked like when your gilded tongue failed you?"

"It did not fail me at all," Garrien protested hotly, a faint blush rising past his collar.

"You've been trying to get under my skin since we met, Highness, and I was not presumptuous enough to try to get under your clothes. But you did offer."

"Several times," the prince acknowledged, "and you never did accept."

"You're a prince. I haven't had much luck being involved with royalty," Essar replied, leaving out anything to do with how his mother was treated and how _he_ had been treated as a royal illegitimate. "I'd rather not be known as your consort."

"As you're also not my valet nor my scribe, yet you dress me, wash me, bring my food and tea, and write all my letters. Why yes, I can see how you prefer to be known." Garrien finally smiled, his own real smile instead of that interrogating uncertainty. "So perhaps," he coughed lightly, "you could demonstrate to me what you had in mind for next time."


End file.
